浅析雅思托福与DET分数的相关性

Score Correlation among TOEFL, IELTS and DET

截至2020年,全球已经有800多所院校和机构认可多邻国英语考试(DET)成绩作为入学申请语言能力证明,甚至可以替代雅思和托福成绩。因此,许多原本计划参加托福或者雅思考试的考生也许会考虑转考DET。在此背景下,多邻国官方所发布的三种考试之间的相关性报告的效度和真实性便值得进一步研究论证。此外,考虑到最近的一次相关性研究,即Geoffrey T. LaFlair和Burr Settles在2019的实验,并未探索DET分数与托福雅思各项小分之间的相关关系,本实验补充了此方面的研究,从而为熟悉托福雅思但并不熟悉DET的考生和辅导机构教师提供一些建议和帮助。本研究采用量化研究方法,使用统计软件IBM SPSS来计算皮尔森和斯皮尔曼相关系数。本实验样本共包含了116份DET分数,其中86份同时拥有托福和DET成绩,另外30份则同时拥有雅思和DET成绩。研究结果如下:1) 托福、雅思和DET三者总分之间存在显著正相关关系,这与多邻国官方研究报告结果一致;2) 托福考生写作和口语分数与DET分数之间呈中等程度相关关系,可能意味着这两部分与DET考生拥有相似的评分标准和难度;3) 托福阅读和听力部分与DET分数没有显著相关关系,意味着熟悉托福的考生和教师在备考DET时需要谨慎借鉴托福的备考经验;4) 除写作以外,DET与雅思其他单项分数均成中等程度相关关系,说明雅思考生转考DET时迁移成本可能较低,但是仍然需要额外注意DET写作部分的备考。

By 2020, more than 800 universities have acknowledged DET score as the language ability certifi-cate for admission as an alternative to TOEFL and IELTS. In consequence, numerous students who intended to take TOEFL or IELTS exam might consider taking DET. Under such circumstance, the validity and authenticity of the score concordance among three tests claimed by Duolingo is worth examining. Moreover, since the latest correlation study, namely the experiment conducted by Geoffrey T. LaFlai and Burr Settles in 2019, did not look into the correlation between the overall DET score and each individual unit scores of TOEFL and IELTS, this research probed into this area so as to offer pedagogical insights to test takers and teachers who are familiar with TOEFL and IELTS but not with DET. This research employed a qualitative method, using IBM SPSS Statistics to compute Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients. The sample involves 116 participants, among of which 86 have TOEFL iBT and DET score, and of which 30 have IELTS and DET score. The findings show that: 1) there is a significant high positive relationship among TOEFL, IELTS and DET overall scores, which accords with previous research results claimed by Duolingo;2) TOEFL writing and speaking scores are moderately correlated with DET scores, indicating that these two parts might share similar scoring rubrics and test difficulty with DET;3) there is no significant correlation between DET and TOEFL’s reading and listening scores, suggesting test takers and language teachers who used to prepare for TOEFL should use their experience with discretion;4) there is a moderate positive relationship between DET scores and all four IELTS part scores except writing, which means that although test takers and teachers with IELTS test preparation experiences seem to have lower difficulty in preparing for DET, yet they still need to pay extra attention to the writing items in DET.